ACC All Access: Search for consistency begins now for Virginia Tech's Jarell Eddie and Robert Brown

By Norm Wood

VIDEO: Virginia Tech's Jarell Eddie talks about season coming to end in ACC tournament

Eddie discusses how N.C. State succeeded, his own big shooting day and Erick Green's struggles

Eddie discusses how N.C. State succeeded, his own big shooting day and Erick Green's struggles

Three weeks ago, Jarell Eddie vowed to take a new approach to his offseason workout plans – something that would get him a little closer to the consistency he hopes to achieve, but never had this season.

At least he’s allegedly taken notes from a good source. After listening to his buddy Erick Green, it’s apparent to Eddie what needs to take place. It’s the old no-days off philosophy, which is popular in commercials for sports drinks, but significantly more challenging to actually put into practice.

Eddie admits he’s caught himself loafing from time-to-time.

“I might take a day off, or I might not practice really hard until later on,” said Eddie, who scored a team-high 21 points Thursday in Tech’s 80-63 loss to North Carolina State in the first round of the ACC tournament. “What (Green) said is…I have to be in there every day, work out every day, shoot every day.”

Maybe seeing the results of Green’s efforts last summer, when he hoisted more than 20,000 shots, will provide inspiration for Eddie. Guard Robert Brown could also use some a little of what got into Green last summer.

While James Johnson gets a bit of a pass for directing a team in his first year as coach that had just eight scholarship players and was undergoing a change in the pace with which its offense went about its business, there’s no denying Tech (13-19) just endured a painful season. The last time Tech had a worse winning percentage that it had this season (.406) was in the 2001-02 season, when it went 10-18 (.357).

To get back to where it wants to be, Tech has several things to get accomplished in the offseason, starting with a facelift on the defensive end. Tech forced the fewest number of turnovers per game (10.7) in the ACC. It was last in the ACC in scoring defense (74.8 points per game) and 10th in field goal percentage defense (43.6).

“There are going to be some changes,” said Johnson on Thursday after Tech’s loss to N.C. State. “We will have a deeper bench, some recruits coming in. We will have a deeper bench so the program will be evaluated, offensively and defensively and (I) haven’t had a chance to do that yet. There are certain things that we want to change and we definitely need to get better at everything.”

Eddie, who averaged 12.3 points per game this season, is expected to be Tech’s senior leader. In addition to having ups and downs in keeping his emotions in check that caused him to get benched at times, he’ll need to have more of the shooting touch from the perimeter he showed early in the season.

During Tech’s 7-0 start (which seems like it took place years ago at this point), Eddie connected on an incredible 19 of 36 attempts (52.8 percent) from 3-point range.

Sure, that’s an unsustainable level of outside shooting success, but he was actually fairly successful through the first two-thirds of the schedule – making 41 of 111 shots (36.9 percent) from 3-point range. It wasn’t until the back end of the slate that the bottom fell out of Eddie’s stroke, as he made just 10 of 48 shots (20.8 percent) from beyond the 3-point line in the last 11 games.

“It’s really frustrating to me to have such an inconsistent year,” Eddie said. “It felt good to see the ball go through the hole (against N.C. State), as well as a couple of games before this. I’ve just got to keep working, keep getting in the gym and keep getting those shots up so I can be more consistent.”

While Eddie could certainly pick up a lot from Green’s workout habits, there’s also something to be learned from Green’s toughness. After Thursday’s loss, Eddie said he saw Green have more and more trouble with a knee injury as the season progressed. Eddie added Green had to get more frequent treatment for the knee and he complained about it a little bit more, but Green was still on the floor in all situations.

“He’s a trooper, so he played through it,” Eddie said.

Brown also struggled to shoot consistently throughout the season. In Tech’s first eight games, he shot a solid 45.2 percent from the floor and averaged 14.4 points per game. In his last 23 games, he shot better than 38.5 percent from the floor in just four games, and averaged 6.3 points per contest.

Though the loss of Green and his 25 points per game may be insurmountable, especially considering the conference will get even tougher next season with the additions of Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Syracuse, Tech will at least add some depth with four incoming freshmen.

Donte Clark, a 6-foot-4 guard from Charlotte who spent this past fall and winter at Hargrave Military Academy, is considered by some recruiting analysts to be among the nation’s top 100 guards in the class of 2013.

Ben Emelogu, a 6-5 guard from Grand Prairie, Texas, averaged 13.5 points per game this past season for the Texas 5A state runner-ups. Adam Smith, a 6-1 transfer from UNC-Wilmington (averaged 13.7 points per game in the 2011-12 season), will be a sophomore in terms of eligibility.

Maurice Kirby, a 6-9 forward from Chandler, Ariz., averaged 15.6 points and 11.5 rebounds per game, but he shot just 44 percent from the floor for a 9-18 high school team. Trevor Thompson is an athletic 6-9 forward from Delafield, Wisc. whose offensive game is still developing.

“There’s always optimism, I guess,” Brown said. “We’ve got a good recruiting class coming in, another year under coach Johnson’s system and his coaching staff. We can only get better from here. The ACC is getting stronger, but as a team we are, too.”